Soleil
by Verboten Byacolate
Summary: His lovers can keep their night. She likes being the one to stand with him in the sun.


_Je suis amoureux de toi_.  
-I'm in love with you.

* * *

She knows better than to visit him at night. If he had his way, night would begin mid-evening and stretch until noon, the time in between for resting up to prepare for evening once more. So she waits for his lovers to leave (they always go late-morning; he doesn't go for the types that stick around), steps into his house and quietly prepares brunch.

Routinely he will step into the kitchen, half nude, and lean against the door frame. He watches her always and yawns. _Bonjour, mon chéri_. She turns and smiles and tells him to put on a shirt. He laughs and walks to her, drapes his arms over her shoulders and embraces her as she finishes the meal.

_Fish again, ma douce?_

_Fish again. _

His breath is always so hot on her neck.

_Of course it will be delicious. I cannot complain. _

She likes to think that he enjoys her cooking. But a father would never tell his precious child that they had done something wrong when it had been done in love, so she can never tell.

A handful of times she had stepped into his house to find that he was not alone. His lovers don't think her a threat, and that's just fine. She has never been in France's bed (well, she has, but that was long, long ago, when she was just learning to walk and he had tucked her in and sang sweet lullabies in her ear and touched her hair and told her how _proud _he was to be her father, her only) and she never plans to be. His lovers come and go when the moon is high. They can keep their night. She _likes _being the one to stand with him in the sun.

Sometimes pretty women touch her hair, give her sweets, paint her lips a shade of red that tells her that they think her just a doll for dressing. _Isn't she lovely?_ they ask in honey-sweet voices to their French lover, draped across the sofa. His cheek rests on his palm, half of his face caged behind long fingers. He smiles languidly.

_Yes_.

She does not like it when he patronizes her with such an honest tone.

She does not know which she likes less: the lovers who stay and coo and make her feel inferior, or the ones that are not so kind. The ones that are there when she comes and tell her to go. The first time was years and years ago. She was so young, so eager to please. She walked into his once-big house, a basket of fish on her arm, and was halted not four feet from the door.

The woman was tall, she remembered, with fair skin and beautiful eyes, and Seychelles was left to wonder whom had enchanted whom into bed.

The lady was lovely, but her voice was cold and her tone harsh. The basket was slapped from her hands and shaken, eyes leaking confusion and hurt, she'd run. She could not find the courage to return, not to retrieve her basket, not to see France's face. In her own small house she made herself stay, would not leave.

He could make his own meals. He was a master with his hands in more ways than one, and her fish could never reach his own rich cuisine.

Not even three days had passed and he was at her door, his knocks calm, his easy smile greeting her from far, far up. _Bonjour, mon chéri_. And she was in his arms, holding him tightly around the waist, pulling him into her house. He held her, spoke softly the language of love in her ear. He told her that she should return, that she would never meet _that woman_ again, that he simply could not make a proper brunch, that only her cooking would do.

He was such a sweet liar.

But she humors him as she always has.

_Est-ce que tu m'aimes?_

She stirs the dish; stew today. It's cold outside.

_Of course I love you._

_Est-ce que tu m'aimes vraiment?_

She thinks that he has enough love to power the world already, but he is dogged, and she knows that he is the only one for her, even if she will never be in his bed. Even if that is the only love he wants.

_Yes. Really._

_Say it._

His arms are warm and snug around her shoulders and she wants so badly to lean back, to turn her head and kiss his face, but she will not be another lover. Her special place would be lost if she stepped into his nights.

_Je t'adore._

'I really love you.' Because _'I'm in love with you'_ was just too perfect. Too out of place. It was something he never had to repeat. He was her love.

_My sweet Seychelles_, he breathed, kissing her hair. _Chéri, I beg of you, no more fish._

Her stupid, stupid love.

* * *

_Ma douce_  
-my sweet_  
Est-ce que tu m'aimes?_  
-do you love me?  
_Est-ce que tu m'aimes vraiment?_  
-do you really love me?

Out of place ending is out of place. I didn't mean for there to be anything like that, but France just wouldn't shut up.  
We need more Seychelles in our fandom, gosh darn it!  
Please critique me and any of France's French and I will do my best to correct him. :)


End file.
